tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post7881296537389553035..comments2024-03-28T22:45:51.014+00:00Comments on Capitalists@Work: China: What Else Will the Virus Bring?CityUnslickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15929544047783163175noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-38735734354945123822020-01-29T05:30:41.993+00:002020-01-29T05:30:41.993+00:00With the current incident, the Communist Party onl...With the current incident, the Communist Party only started being open when they realised it was too late to cover the whole thing up.<br /><br />How many epidemics might have started and been contained without the rest of the world finding out?<br /><br />"Wet markets" exist in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other developed places around Asia, yet they manage to adhere to reasonable standards of hygiene. (SARS affected Hong Kong badly because of poor construction of waste water piping in blocks of flats)<br /><br />Chinese people from richer countries may like "exotic" foods but they also look down on the poor hygiene practiced in mainland China. One could say that Chinese are racist to each other, but that is like saying Europeans are racist to each other if a white English guy doesn't want Romanians coming to England.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-77734159830574913012020-01-26T21:59:53.010+00:002020-01-26T21:59:53.010+00:00I'm amazed we've lasted this long. If not ...I'm amazed we've lasted this long. If not this then we're on borrowed time anyway. E-Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16657071992016670517noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-25865418850774638582020-01-26T15:17:29.639+00:002020-01-26T15:17:29.639+00:00Surely I must have thrown Eamon Fingleton at you d...Surely I must have thrown Eamon Fingleton at you dozens of times by now? The mercantilist far east is eating the lunch, the jobs and the technology of the "muh free markets" west. <br /><br /><i>Two bets are on the table. One has been placed by the Washington establishment, the other by the Chinese Communist Party.</i><br /><br /><i>Analyzing China’s prospects in terms of fashionable globalist ideology, Washington is betting that a rich China will be a free one. The theory is that the only way China can continue to grow is by embracing Western democracy and capitalism. Moreover, the very process of China’s enrichment is supposedly undermining the Beijing government’s authoritarianism. More wealth means more freedom means more wealth...</i><br /><br /><i>Abroad too the Washington view is increasingly prevalent. After visiting Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair cited the rise of a Chinese middle class and the spread of the Internet as factors that had produced “an unstoppable momentum … towards greater political freedom [and] progress on human rights.”</i><br /><br /><i>The Washington view has become so widely accepted that almost no one has noticed that there is second bet on the table–that of the Chinese leadership. It has been placed on a disturbingly different outcome: that a future China can be both rich and authoritarian.</i> <br /><br />Is it just coincidence that China opened its first Biosafety level 4 lab two years ago - in Wuhan? Is it coincidence or the long arm of Donald which saw two senior Chinese researchers escorted from their Canadian lab last week?<br /><br />https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/dismissal-and-investigation-by-rcmp-of-winnipeg-co-inventor-of-ebola-drug-stuns-colleagues<br /><br />We need to fund Porton Down better, btw. We'll soon see how "race doesn't exist" pans out as a theory when bugsb or viruses are modified to differentially affect ethnic groups. It didn't pan out too well for Native Americans when a load of people who'd evolved alongside Old World diseases arrived in the New World.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-22505632903425948442020-01-26T12:37:51.381+00:002020-01-26T12:37:51.381+00:00I saw some ground shots of the construction site a...I saw some ground shots of the construction site and the backhoes seemed to be distributing piles of sub-base material a bit like our Type 1 - to form an aggregate platform on which to stand multi-story portacabins, which is what the new hospital will be. <br /><br />Yep the Chinese eat some funny stuff but the food culture amongst poor peasants perpetually on the verge of starvation will always include the animals and bits of animals that the wealthy can afford not to have to eat. With kudos to restaurants such as St John's, pig's trotters did not originally feature on the tables of the wealthy because they could afford the nicer bits. Having a sufficiency of animal protein in the markets is a new experience for the Chinese peasant and one I suspect to which they have not yet quite adjusted in food hygiene terms.<br /><br />The fact that it's our own woke Grauniad-reading food health fascists getting an earful from readers offended at their cultural imperialism is a delight; these are the people who have tried to ban unpasteurised cheese and who make it impossible to buy a pink beefburger. Serves them right. <br /><br />And yes. This will be the proofing of China's system of benign authoritarianism. Paradoxically, State-controlled capitalism may be the only form of socialism that has ever worked. Raedwaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11699610899843349594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-80776862835413763612020-01-26T12:18:01.017+00:002020-01-26T12:18:01.017+00:00SARS, Bird Flu, Asian Swine Flu, climate emergency...SARS, Bird Flu, Asian Swine Flu, climate emergency - is there a day where a world wide disaster isn't predicted?Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08141297358269863170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-89568481368279655082020-01-26T12:05:38.003+00:002020-01-26T12:05:38.003+00:00The thing that struck me about the overhead shot o...The thing that struck me about the overhead shot of all the earthmovers was...not a single truck.decninehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13596065522088717061noreply@blogger.com